How Attention Changes Face and Place Signals

Visual attention helps the brain focus on relevant information and ignore distractions. The human visual system can process a large amount of input very quickly, but its capacity is limited. Some parts of attention happen automatically, while others are controlled on purpose through top-down attention.

Visual attentional control refers to our deliberate state of choosing what to pay attention to.

If, for instance, the goal of an observer is to pick out all of the onions in his soup, then he may not notice the fly that is swirling about.

Even though both were spatially coincident, the item of focus?the onions?stood out because of th...